


it starts with one

by superhusbands



Series: endgame fix-its [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: ABORT ABORT IF YOU HAVENT SEEN IT YET, F/M, M/M, Spoilers for Endgame, serious spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:46:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18614356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superhusbands/pseuds/superhusbands
Summary: he’s back in wakanda. he’s watching bucky crumble into dust, feels an overwhelming surge of despair. except then, there’d been hope. there’d been confusion, determination; a plan to fix what had gone wrong.they’d lost. losing was supposed to hurt.winning wasn’t supposed to hurt.





	it starts with one

**Author's Note:**

> obviously y'all can see i'm having a LOT of feelings about this movie.  
> i've never had muse like this so i'm going to ride it out until it DIES

* * *

 

there’s dust in the air. it clings to his hair, stings his eyes. if he reached out, it would settle in his palm like grains of sand slipping through an hourglass, through his fingers. 

he’s not looking at the dust.

he’s on his knees. there’s a hand on his shoulder, gripping tightly. his chest is caving in, bone crushing into pieces. when his hand moves to touch his chest, he’s surprised to see he’s intact. he’s not falling apart. 

he’s —

“ oh god. “

he’s back in wakanda. he’s watching bucky crumble into dust, feels an overwhelming surge of despair. except then, there’d been hope. there’d been confusion, determination; a plan to fix what had gone wrong.

they’d lost. losing was supposed to hurt.

winning wasn’t supposed to hurt. 

someone’s pulling him up. it’s sam, straight faced and bruised. his lip is bleeding from a cut that looks like its been reopened.  his gaze is soft, his lower lip trembling. he looks like a man who’s seen war, who knows the sting of failure. who knows that winning sometimes feels like losing. 

everything has its cost.

steve had never expected it would be tony. 

“ steve. don’t — “

but it’s too late. steve is stumbling. he’s falling, he’s on his knees. his hands weigh him down like anchors, unsure how and where to touch him.  he’s broken, splintering into oblivion.  

he closes his eyes and sees bucky falling from the train.  
he sees the ice as his ship crashes into it.  
he sees stark tower exploding as a leviathan runs through it.

he sees pietro falling to his knees.  
he sees bucky, a man who doesn’t remember him.  
he sees the mind stone ripped from vision’s head.   
  
he sees, he sees, he sees.

when he opens his eyes, he sees his nightmares come to life. 

spider-man is on his knees, he’s apologizing.  
something inside of steve snaps. it splinters, breaking off into pieces.

_he can’t be more than 17._

it’s too young to see the spoils of war, to know the taste of blood. of death, of ash. 

pepper tugs the boy back. she’s reaching for tony, her hands carefully framing his face. “ you can rest. “

steve sees.

he sees tony take his last breath.  
he sees his eyes glaze over. sees the life drain from them.  
  
it’s all a blur from there. 

                                                                                                                                                  ~

when the funeral’s over, when tony is buried and his arc reactor set to sea, it’s just steve and pepper. morgan’s with happy out on the porch and the rest of the avengers have gone to the time machine.  the fight’s not over; it’s never over.

the stones need to be returned. 

“ all this time, all these years, “  her voice is tired.  it cracks, her eyes shine. “ i thought it was a choice.  the suits, being a hero. “ there’s a ghost of a smile on her face. 

“...and then you put on the suit. “  he finishes.

“ then i put on the suit. “

steve knows. he knows it in his soul, in his bones. 

it was why he’d tried to enlist again, and again, and again.  when there’s a need, when there’s a fight to be won, the only choice is to get up.  to move forward, to push through, and to fight. 

he’d been fighting long before he picked up the shield. 

“ i think about the time we lost. “ he says after a moment. “...because of the accords, after sokovia. “  he swallows thickly.  “ i think, we should have had more time. all of us.  the team. “

the team is fractured now.  no natasha, no tony.  he sees their absence in everything, the absence of their presence like someone had ripped through his side and dissected parts of his heart. 

 he’s a series of nonunions; fractures that never healed properly, splintering through him and weighing down his bones. 

“ that’s the thing, “ she said with a sigh. “ you never know how much time you’ll have. not until you’ve run out. “

his jaw clenches.  he reaches over, takes her hand with his.

the sit there until the sun sinks behind the horizon. 

                                                                                                                                           ~

“ uncle steve ! “

 he straightens, a smile on his face.  the little girl runs over to him, pulls at his pant legs until he picks her up. “ little lady. “

she beams up at him.  “ mom said you weren’t coming. “

“ i wasn’t so sure that i was. “  

morgan smiles again.  her arms wrap around his neck, her smile so much like tony’s that it steals his breath.  

it used to break his heart.  he’d look at her and need to look away, like the burn of your eyes when you stared too intently at the sun.  pepper had put a stop to that, grasping his bicep as he’d moved to leave. 

“ loving her doesn’t mean you loved him any less. “

he’d come around more after that. 

“ morgan stark, you’re too old to be carried around. “ pepper leans up against the doorframe, arms cross over her chest.  behind her, happy sets the table for four. 

“ i’m only 7. “  morgan argues. 

“ yeah, ms. potts. she’s only 7. “  he’s smiling, watching as pepper rolls her eyes fondly.  “ there’s still plenty of time to be carried around. “  morgan grins, as if to say  _ha, i win._

she was most definitely a stark. 

“ pepper. “  she sighs.  “ don’t you think we’re past formalities, steve ? “

he nods. “ my apologies. “

her gaze softens, a hand brushing through morgan’s hair carefully.  they both touch the girl like she’ll crumble to dust in their hands.  it’s a fear, a symptom of watching the people you loved die right in front of you.

it gets easier. it gets harder.  
grief isn’t a linear process. 

                                                                                                                                                       ~

it’s been five years.

when steve wakes, it’s with a pounding in his skull.  a reminder, a warning; nothing good will come from this day. 

he gets up anyway. 

the compound has been rebuilt. they’re fractured, the team filled with new recruits over the years, but its never quite the same. 

some people can’t be replaced.

“ earth to cap. “

he looks up.  there stands colonel rhodes, dressed in his air force dress uniform.  it’s startling at first; steve is so used to seeing him in the war machine suit, even now, years after he’d put the suit on the shelf.

“ we’ve got somewhere to be. “

the three of them sit around the table.  the quinjet is parked outside the window, his reflection staring back at him in the glass paned windows of tony and pepper’s former california home. 

she’d had it rebuilt, though they’d never returned home.

“ tony was — man, he had this birthday. “ rhodey is smiling, a drink in hand.  they’ve all had a few drinks, reminiscing about the people they’d lost.  the people who couldn’t sit beside them.  “ so he gets drunk.  like, so drunk he can barely stand.  he blasted a hole in the ceiling with one of the repulsors, “  he gestured upwards.  “ natasha tries to stop him but you know tony. “  he smirks.  “ i end up stealing a suit, kick his ass, and take it back to base. “  he shook his head.  “ could have stopped me, y’know.  not like, even on his worst day, tony couldn’t work the suit better than me. “  he took another sip.  “ but that’s the thing about him.  when he trusts you, he trusts you. “

steve knows it well.  
he also knows what it’s like to lose that trust.

it still hurts, like a fraction of pygmy sized cuts.   
they heal and they reopen. the pain never goes away, not really.

later, when it’s just pepper and steve, she looks at him.  
really looks at him.

“ did he know ? “

steve frowns.

“ know what ? “

her gaze is sympathetic.  “ that you were in love with him. “

he freezes, the ice creeping through his bloodstream.  he remembers the ship crashing, remembers feeling the water rush in and his system slow as it lulled him into sleep.

“ no. “  he says.  

“ i didn’t know myself until it was too late. “   he lies.

the truth, he thinks, would hurt too much to speak aloud. of regrets, time wasted, and choices he wouldn’t take back.  decisions that led them here, led to the world as they knew it. 

when steve looked into morgan stark’s eyes, he knew that everything they’d done, every sacrifice made, had been the right choice.  it wasn’t fair, but life hardly ever was. 

he’d told the moving on group that he’d lost the love of his life when he’d gone into the ice.  it wasn’t true, but it was the truth he clung to.  the truth he needed to believe to get through the days. 

he couldn’t think of the things he’d never said, or the chances he’d never taken. he  _couldn’t_.   

it would drive him mad.

“ it’s never too late. “  she replied simply, her hand reaching for his.  he thinks he should be comforting her, but she’s always been the stronger of the two of them.  she’s the best of all of them.  tony would agree.  “ he’d be — all of us, being here like this, “  her eyes are welling up with tears. “...i think it’s what he’s always wanted.  a family.  one that loves so strongly, so fiercely, it can get through anything. “

his eyes are wet too, as he squeezes back. 

“ we will. whatever it takes. “


End file.
